Growing Up
by Laetans
Summary: Crack. Erza gets her first period, and Gray and Natsu do what they do. Natsu's true weakness is revealed, and a cake is murdered.


_AN: This is set when the younger mages are 12-13ish._

With a sigh, Erza Scarlet rolled out of bed and put a hand over her midsection. If the arrival of her first period hadn't allowed her to show up demonic hellcat Mirajane in the competition to become a woman first, she would have been way more upset about it. As long as she got to show up her rival, she could deal with the pain.

She got up and went to the bathroom she shared with the other girls on her floor of the girl's dormitory: Mirajane, Lisanna, Cana, and poor Evergreen, who was often stuck being the knowledgeable big sister of the bunch. After watching her deal with all of 'Makarov's brats,' it really wasn't a surprise that her big power happened to be a glare that turned people to stone.

Erza got along well with Evergreen though, because they both had a sweet tooth and Erza ignored the fact that Laxus – being a pretty normal teenage boy – often snuck into the dorms late at night to visit Evergreen.

She showered and dressed, and while she was standing in front of the sink doing her hair, Mirajane came into the bathroom and said, "Hurry up. I need to do my hair too."

Erza, who was in a horrible mood for a lot of reasons and needed no provocation at all, looked over and said, "Do your hair? What's there to do? Grab the front section and put it into the ugliest, most awkward-looking ponytail imaginable?"

"There's nothing wrong with how I style my hair! It's very popular!" Mirajane argued.

"It looks stupid."

Cana peeped around the corner, because she really needed to pee, but the only thing worse than getting in the middle of bitchy twelve-year-old girls was when those girls were Fairy Tail's Hellcat and Titania. Anything, including going to the restroom in Lisanna's potted plant, was better than interrupting hormonal, mean S-Class wizards.

In the bathroom, Mirajane bumped hips with Erza, knocking her over from her place directly in front of the mirror. "I see how it is. You think you're so important because you're on your period."

"No, I want to kill everyone because I'm on my period. I don't expect you to understand, since you're still a child," Erza grumbled as she returned the gesture, sending Mirajane through the drywall next to the door.

Mirajane pulled a stud out of the wall and swung it at Erza, who ducked, causing the force to shatter the mirror.

The redhead sighed. "You broke a mirror. Seven years of bad luck. I can't think of anyone who deserves it more."

"At least I don't wear armor all the time," Mirajane replied as she placed her hands on her hips.

Erza rolled her eyes. "You dress like a whore."

"Don't make me transform. I'll use Satan's Soul!"

"Could you transform into someone that isn't an annoying slut that is jealous her breasts haven't grown in yet?"

Five minutes later, Evergreen was giving Cana a talk about appropriate places she could go to the restroom when she heard a loud crash and found Mirajane and Erza trying to slap each other in a fit of rage that had no source or purpose other than their rivalry and hormones.

"I can't deal with this. I'm going on the job with Laxus. Be back next week."

XXX

Once almost their entire floor had been destroyed, Mirajane and Erza parted ways and while the blue-eyed bad girl went on a job, Erza headed toward Fairy Tail to get a new job even though she had horrible cramps, a headache, and was still in a mood for destruction.

As she passed the bakery, she decided she'd treat herself to something nice because she felt awful and instead of her usual strawberry cake, her eye was captured by a triple-layer chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream frosting and cherries on top.

"…Have I fallen in love?" she asked out loud as she stared at it. "That one. That's the one."

Suddenly, the day didn't seem like it would be so bad. Resolving that she'd take a high-paying job and eat her beloved cake on the way, she took a deep breath and cleared her mind.

No problem, right?

There was no reason that anything had to be different for her now that she was having her period. The only people who knew where the girls on her floor, and even Mirajane knew secret young woman code dictated she couldn't tell anyone.

When she entered her guild, it was the same as always.

Natsu was challenging half the guild to fight him, Gray was sitting at a table wearing nothing but his boxers, Elfman was delivering a lecture about how peeing while standing up was 'manly,' and Bickslow was annoying Levy and her two fanboys as she tried to study.

The look on her face and her aura silenced them instantly, and she went over to the table where the younger generation of Fairy Tail was.

"Natsu, have you ever thought of behaving? Gray, have you ever thought of pants? Elfman, _stop talking about peeing!_ And Bickslow, put that disgusting, freaky tongue back in your mouth before I cut it off!" she said as she made her way to the jobs board.

Happy trembled from his place on Natsu's shoulder. "I'm scared, Natsu. Erza's evil!"

Her dark eyes met Happy's, showing her well-tuned senses picked up on the cat's comment, which caused Happy to squeal and hide behind Natsu while Gray put all of his clothes back on, buttoning his shirt up all the way for the first time in as long as he could remember. Whatever was wrong with Erza, they didn't want to make it worse and they didn't want to become her victims.

Natsu, in a moment of ignorant, misguided concern for Erza, crinkled his nose and approached her. "Are you feeling okay, Erza? Did you get hurt? You smell like blood…did somebody hurt you? Where are you hurt?"

Everyone in the guild who wasn't a twelve-year-old boy stared in utter horror as Natsu started sniffing around her hips and decided that this was the day that Erza would finally kill Natsu Dragneel.

Kill him dead.

And then kill him again.

Embarrassed beyond description, Erza hit Natsu so hard he went flying across the room. "You idiot!"

Now Gray was concerned and ripped his shirt and pants off, throwing them haphazardly across the room. "Erza, did someone hurt you? What happened? Who made you bleed?"

Elfman commented. "This is not manly. This is suicide."

Gray went flying across the room and hit Natsu, who was still laid-out half-conscious on the floor under the hole his head made in the wall. Happy was actually at the bottom of this stack, although he was out cold.

Erza set out on a course for them, rotating her 'beat the shit out of idiots' arm and just before she made it to them, Gildarts swept Gray and Natsu up from the floor, holding one in each of his arms.

"Don't kill these poor idiots. Look at 'em. Their only crime is being really, really stupid," the older man said. "I'll take care of them."

Gildarts carried the boys out and wondered how it was that he ended up with this duty. Really, where had Makarov gone? He could have sworn the master had been right next to him until Erza got angry, although who didn't hide when Erza was mad? He shuddered to imagine how much scarier she'd be as an adult, since she was already S-Class and capable of scaring pretty much any normal human being shitless.

When he dropped them on the grass in the park, he soon had two ignorant but thankful boys clinging to each of his legs.

"You saved my life!" Natsu exclaimed.

"If you can smell _that_, how in the hell do you live without being aware of it? Do you just no pay attention to it most of the time? I'm honestly…kind of confused. You haven't noticed that women bleed?" Gildarts asked.

The little dragon slayer answered, "Adult women do. Igneel told me that sometimes, grown women smell like blood and that I should never bring that up to them. And also, that it's their 'evil time.' I don't…I don't understand what that means."

The man pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "Evil time? That is…" he sighed, "you boys. Geeze. You're idiots. I'll leave most of this to Makarov, but let's just say that Erza is becoming a grown woman, so she has an 'evil time' also. If you value your lives and personal safety, you won't ever refer to it as 'evil time' in front of them. Actually, just don't talk about it at all."

Gray knew more than Natsu did because he'd actually spent a lot of time with a grown woman who taught her two male students what was necessary and normal for a pubescent boy to know. "Erza has her period?" He cringed. "That's so gross. You can smell that, Natsu? Do you even know where the blood is coming from?"

"No?"

He covered his mouth to shield it from Gildarts, then mouthed the word 'vagina' to Natsu and pointed down to his crotch.

Natsu's response to the idea that all his life he'd been smelling blood that came from the vaginas of women he did not even know was to squeeze his eyes shut, cover his ears, and squeal like a girl. He fell back in the grass and stared blankly at the sky, a horrified scowl practically cemented onto his face.

Gildarts looked down at Natsu and then knelt. He snapped his fingers in front of Natsu's face. "Natsu? Natsu? You okay, buddy?" He looked up at Gray. "I think you killed him, Gray."

Gray poked at Natsu, and then shook him. "Natsu? Geeze, it's like he's brain dead or something. But…I think I know how to get him up."

"How?"

The ebony-haired ice mage shouted, "Quick, Natsu! Erza's coming!"

Natsu flew up, clonking his head against Gray's so hard that they both just fell over in a daze.

Gildarts shook his head. "This is the future of Fairy Tail. I am filled with so much hope and joy. Really."

He was sure Gray and Natsu would both grow up to be strong wizards, and tried to envision them in the future. All he could see was a nudist and a motion-sick pyromaniac who could be defeated by the word 'vagina.'

Ultimately, they'd learned not to annoy Erza, so his work was done. Everything else was somebody else's problem. Namely, Makarov, as it was Makarov's idea to round up and keep so many youngsters in the first place. It was all fun and games when they were small and cute, but they were all suddenly reaching the age where they stopped being adorable and moved into obnoxious and hormonal.

He abandoned them drooling and half-conscious in the park and decided he'd take a job that allowed him to leave Magnolia for the next week. He heard Laxus had something interesting to do…

Natsu and Gray eventually recovered and quietly made their way back toward the guild.

"Girls are kind of gross. Bleeding from their…" the fire dragon slayer shuddered.

"It's so they can have babies. Erza could have babies now."

"That's even scarier and grosser," Natsu commented.

Gray shrugged as they entered the guild. "I'm just glad I never know when it's going on. Sucks to be you."

"You want to fight? Natsu growled.

Within seconds, they were tumbling across the floor, and their fight quickly escalated until a table had been broken although everyone just ignored them as always. Erza wasn't in the room, and their master was still noticeably absent, so they were free to scrap as they pleased.

Gray punched Natsu and sent him flying across the table onto a giant plate, the contents of which squished in his hair, and pulling it free, he smashed the rest of the chocolate cake against Gray's face with a victorious smirk that literally melted off of his face when he got up and saw Erza standing before them with a plate, a cake-slicer, and a fork.

In a very calm voice that didn't match the murderous expression on her face, she asked, "Has anyone seen my cake?"

The two boys clung to each other and Natsu melodramatically cried, "Gray, we're gonna die. For real this time!"

"We have to run, Natsu. Our survival depends on it!"

They ran together, first out of the guild, and then down the street toward the park, and then to the forest. The twigs and branches stung Gray's bare skin, and when he realized where some of the little scrapes were coming, he realized he'd lost his boxers at some point, but did not care.

Only survival mattered.

They came to a clearing and they stopped to catch their breath.

Gray pulled Natsu's shirt over his head. "Sorry, Natsu. If Erza catches you and kills you first, I'll have more time to run."

Natsu easily overcame this obstacle by setting his clothes on fire, which completely reduced his shirt to ashes and damaged his pants enough that he couldn't keep them up anymore. He discarded them and suddenly, they were a completely naked boy being chased by a pink-haired boy wearing nothing boy his boxers and his shoes.

Fire and ice flashed as they dueled and raced at the same time, destroying the forest anywhere they went.

They were so busy fighting each other that they disregarded warnings not to continue deeper into the woods, and quickly met the reason for those warnings, a huge forest Vulcan.

"Heh heh, humans…" he said.

But instead of being terrified, Gray and Natsu realized that being attacked by a monster in the woods was practically a gift from God himself and were actually quite happy and gracious.

The Vulcan hadn't ever had a human thank him for attacking them in the middle of the forest. He held up rope, and the children complied, allowing themselves to be restrained. Something seemed really amiss, but he wasn't one to turn down a free meal.

Although, he was confused about why they weren't wearing clothes…

Erza suddenly broke into the glade where the Vulcan was, wielding a sword that was bigger than she was. "Vulcan! Release them and I'll consider letting you live!"

"Oh? You want them? Why?"

"So I can kill them myself!"

The monster and Erza had a brief battle that most would have simply labeled an 'asswhooping,' and when the Vulcan ran off into the woods, Erza approached the two tied-up boys where they sat on the ground next to each other.

She knelt and wrapped her arms around them. "I'm so relieved that you're okay. You two need to be more careful or something bad might happen to you," she sweetly said before lowering her voice and whispering, "like you'll recklessly destroy my cake and I will feel the need to hunt you to the ends of the earth and cover your entire body in decorative bruisework. Your bodies will be like a quilt, except made from contusions."

XXX

The next morning, Laxus entered the guild, hoping someone else signed up to help him with his S-Class quest. It looked really difficult, and his grandfather told him all the time that he needed to work more with others.

When he walked in, the jobs board on the first floor was completely empty, the guild only had the bartender and three of the younger mages in it, and the sign-up sheet for his quest was filled. Apparently over twenty wizards signed up on top of every conceivable job being taken.

"What the hell?"

He looked over at the only occupied table and saw two black and blue forms that he faintly recognized as Gray and Natsu seated on each side of Erza as the redhead ate a big slice of chocolate cake.

Makarov came in and sat at the bar. "Laxus, I see the events here at the guild convinced a lot of people to sign up for your quest. I hope it proves fruitful in helping you bond with your guildmates."

"What exactly is going on here?"

The old man said, "No one wants to be around here for some reason."

Laxus doubted his grandfather didn't know what was going on. "What's with the kids?"

"They're becoming adults. A few bumps and bruises and occasional spells of full-body contusions are expected among those three. They honestly don't know how to do anything the easy way. It'll make them strong. Well, Erza. It might make Natsu and Gray dead. Those two are idiots."

_**Please Review!**_

_AN: So a little crack. I do that occasionally._


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